If I had to summarize the tools I’ve used to become successful and not all are financial, they are listed below (not in any particular order).
In coming months, I will discuss each of these in more detail so get your pen and pad ready!
1. Always do EXACTLY what you say you will, to EVERYONE.
2. Surround yourself with people that are smarter than you.
3. Surround yourself with people that can do what you don’t, won’t or shouldn’t do, or that can do it better than you.
4. Become an effective leader. Not a boss, a leader.
5. Have a mantra of constant development and improvement.
6. Be technologically savvy.
7. You simply must keep perfect credit.
8. Understand the financials and operating metrics.
9. Rely on peers and other professionals, including consultants, to help you, being judicious about the cost of course.
10. Be willing to promote yourself, talk about your successes and mentor others, sharing.
11. Learn marketing and advertising.
12. Learn to think strategically.
13. There is no substitute for an extreme sense of urgency.
14. Be the 80 percent person.
15. Host weekly meetings with all key employees, with an agenda.
16. Learn to delegate; tolerate mediocrity and the value of five seconds.
17. Share with others, listen, be collaborative – you simply don’t know what you don’t know.
18. Don’t be afraid to be a rebel – push back, think out of the box, but be strategic and analytic about it.
19. There’s plenty of money. Be patient and prove you can plan and then
execute against a plan.
20. Don’t create a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist, and don’t breathe your own exhaust (get enamored by your own ideas excluding others).
21. Watch and understand your competitors, but don’t focus on them.
22. Positive energy – There is no other way to survive the grueling crawl to success.
23. Systems run like watches, people can let you down.
24. Understand how your world is going to change – Many successful people start businesses, but their skills were limited to what they did. Chefs cook great, and they may even be great leaders in the kitchen. But, it’s important to understand in a new role as owner that the employees are counting on you to run the restaurant. They know you can cook; it’s not enough. Can you hire and fire, deal with clients, do the marketing, bring the clients, handle the legal stuff and keep track of the money? Until you’ve learned those skills, you are going to be frustrated and your team will be frustrated and you won’t be an effective leader. Remember, they are counting on you to be the leader. It took you years to learn to cook, but you won’t have years to learn all the rest of the stuff!
25. Do hard stuff first, have a good work ethic and a strong sense of urgency.
26. Have “positive dissatisfaction” about everything.
27. If you make me look good and I make you look good, then we will both always look good. Apply it and teach it, demand it.
REMEMBER ONLY YOU CAN MAKE BUSINESS GREAT!
Ron Sturgeon, Mr. Mission Possible, has been a successful business owner for more than 35 years. As a small business consultant, he can wisdom and advice gleaned from an enviable business career that started when he opened a VW repair business as a homeless 17-year-old and culminated in the sale of several businesses he built to Fortune 500 companies. Ron has helped bankers, lawyers, insurance agents, restaurant owners, and body shop owners, as well as, countless salvage yard owners to become more successful business people. He is an expert in helping small business owners set the right business strategies, implement pay-for-performance, and find new customers on the web.
As a consultant, Ron shares his expertise in strategic planning, capitalization, compensation, growing market share, and more in his signature plainspoken style, providing field-proven, and high-profit best practices well ahead of the business news curve. Ron is the author of nine books, including How to Salvage More Millions from Your Small Business.
To inquire about consulting or keynote speaking, contact Ron at 817-834-3625,
ext. 232, rons@MrMissionPossible.com, 5940 Eden, Haltom City, TX. 76117.